Climate Craziness AND Quote of the Week – Bill McKibben suggests we can ‘change physics’

I’ve never done a double feature before where our Climate Craziness of the Week and Quote of the Week are one and the same. 350.org’s Bill McKibben gets this unique honor.

From the what universe does Bill McKibben live in department? While going on about heat waves, he comes up with the ultimate “I don’t understand science” zinger. How long before people stop listening to this guy? I would not have believed he’d be disturbed enough to write this if I hadn’t read it as a direct quote written by his own hand.

warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe.
…
Scientists estimate that humans can pour roughly 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by midcentury and still have some reasonable hope of staying below two degrees. (“Reasonable,” in this case, means four chances in five, or somewhat worse odds than playing Russian roulette with a six-shooter.)
…”The new data provide further evidence that the door to a two-degree trajectory is about to close,” said Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist. In fact, he continued, “When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of about six degrees.” That’s almost 11 degrees Fahrenheit, which would create a planet straight out of science fiction.
…
We have five times as much oil and coal and gas on the books as climate scientists think is safe to burn. We’d have to keep 80 percent of those reserves locked away underground to avoid that fate…Most of us are fundamentally ambivalent about going green: We like cheap flights to warm places, and we’re certainly not going to give them up if everyone else is still taking them. Since all of us are in some way the beneficiaries of cheap fossil fuel, tackling climate change has been like trying to build a movement against yourself – it’s as if the gay-rights movement had to be constructed entirely from evangelical preachers, or the abolition movement from slaveholders.
…Given this hard math, we need to view the fossil-fuel industry in a new light. It has become a rogue industry, reckless like no other force on Earth. It is Public Enemy Number One to the survival of our planetary civilization. “Lots of companies do rotten things in the course of their business – pay terrible wages, make people work in sweatshops – and we pressure them to change those practices,” says veteran anti-corporate leader Naomi Klein, who is at work on a book about the climate crisis. “But these numbers make clear that with the fossil-fuel industry, wrecking the planet is their business model. It’s what they do.”…this industry, and this industry alone, holds the power to change the physics and chemistry of our planet, and they’re planning to use it.
…
There’s not a more reckless man on the planet than Tillerson…In December, BP finally closed its solar division. Shell shut down its solar and wind efforts in 2009. The five biggest oil companies have made more than $1 trillion in profits since the millennium – there’s simply too much money to be made on oil and gas and coal to go chasing after zephyrs and sunbeams.
…Until a quarter-century ago, almost no one knew that CO2 was dangerous…if their college’s endowment portfolio has fossil-fuel stock, then their educations are being subsidized by investments that guarantee they won’t have much of a planet on which to make use of their degree. …we have met the enemy and they is Shell.

164 thoughts on “Climate Craziness AND Quote of the Week – Bill McKibben suggests we can ‘change physics’”

So is Rolling Stone peer reviewed now?
My son get this POS and it is a far-left propoganda tool, nothing more, nothing less. There is a minimum of music and cultural articles, just enough to get the propoganda into the hands of malliable minds.

Even when i was a kid RS was a rag, and you knew Bob Dylan could fart in a can and get 4 starts but no prog rock band would EVER get a good review. They even trashed Led Zeppelin for years before they went back and started to rewrite history and take down the scathing rewviews they gave to them. Prententious drivel doesn’t even begin to describe RS.

Temperatures have been flat for a decade. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that in the past the periods of rapidly warming temperature coincided with a rising AMO index and periods of flat or cooling temperature with a falling index. We are now in a falling period and temperatures could well be flat for another two or three decades. How long will it take the Bill McKibben’s of this world to wake up to the fact?

The amazing thing is that they can’t see that the roof is going to fall on their heads if they bring it down.
….

It’s interesting to see how well Shell’s bending over backwards for years to accomodate these clowns has paid off. It not really the same, but it reminds me of Chamberlin and Daladier’s attempts to placate Hitler.

The McKibbenites are nuts. They don’t realize Royal Dutch Shell is one of the biggest players in the climate games. Or they do, and that drives them crazier. Maybe that’s what happened–McKibben, previously ridiculed for not knowing where his org’s money comes from, investigated and discovered 350.org is a tacit front for the fossil fuel industry. I had thought he probably was getting money from the government under the guise of “education” grants about “climate change.”

Why do I read this?? If I start to get too happy I can count on the human nature of Bill M and others to sadden the day. However, I am very thankful for sites like this one, Climate Audit, Climate Etc
and more. Illumination is always good.

I’ll give him credit for acknowledging what a raging hypocrite he is.
—–
“it’s as if the gay-rights movement had to be constructed entirely from evangelical preachers, or the abolition movement from slaveholders.”

I recall in Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle, Dr. Felix Hoenikker invented a crystal called “Ice Nine” which changed the physical properties of water so that it had a melting point of 114.4 degrees F. (Presumably, there were 8 previous attempts to make this crystal.)

I didn’t really enjoy this novel very much, but it’s interesting to Google “ice nine” and read the theoretical basis for how something can change the physical properties of every molecule of water it comes in contact with.

And McKibben? He’s a freakin’ idiot. We’re in more danger from him and his fifth-columnist Red buddies than we are from the bogey man of AGW.

“the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99”
By my calculations (might not be correct), temperatures for the entire globe for 600 of the 1200 months in the 20th century exceeded the 20th century average. The odds of that occurring must be horrendous!

” the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe.”

Ten to the MINUS 99 power is much less than one, which is indeed far fewer than the number of stars in the universe.
I think there is one star, and I am confident there is at least one star, close to our planet, that has more to do with the actual climate than Bill or CO2.

“warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe.”

As always with the kitchen statistics of warmists, this assumes that events are independent of each other like in a lottery. The global average temperature does not fullfill this requirement. It would be white noise if that were so, but it is brown noise. Bill McKibben has not understood the null hypothesis.

Bill, if you’re reading this, I know you can’t make sense of it. Please ask some sciency guy to explain the terms I used. I’m too lazy.

Bill obviously meant the chance/probability of the consecutive hot months was 10 to the minus 99 (very small), but due to his lack of mathematical training (or foaming at the mouth) , he mistakenly conflates that with the number of stars.

His lack of understanding of correlated data aside, what he meant to say is there is one chance in 10 to the +99, which is greater than the number of stars.

The number of stars in the universe as 10E80 is from Eddington’s Large Number Hypothesis, itself an expansive version of Dirac’s LNH. See perhaps Barrow and Tipler’s The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (1998 Oxford)

Even more interesting is a VP of Shell, Ged Davis, is evident in a Climategate e-mail. He wrote Sustainable Development Scenerio (B1) and was connected to the IPCC and the United Nations. see my old comment on the connections.

Having worked in various countries and units within the Royal Dutch/Shell Group since 1972, Ged Davis is now Shell’s Head of Scenario Processes and Applications. In this capacity Davis recently headed the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s (WBCSD) Scenario Project team responsible for producing work on sustainable development from the international business community’s perspective.

WBSCD’s work challenges traditional short-sighted notions of First Raise Our Growth (FROG); it advocates a shared commitment from society to overcoming the threats we face in the future. By stimulating debate between non-governmental organisations, government and business on economic development, environmental protection and social responsibility, the work of Davis and his colleagues contributes to an on-going international policy dialogue.http://worldforum98.percepticon.com/speakers/g-davis.html

And another bio

Ged Davis is co-president of the Global Energy Assessment. Previously he was managing director of the World Economic Forum, responsible for global research, scenario projects, and the design of the annual Forum meeting at Davos, which brings together 2,400 corporate, government, and non-profit leaders to shape the global agenda….

Ged is a member of the InterAcademy Council Panel on Transitions to Sustainable Energy,… Ged has led a large number of scenario projects during his career, including the multi-year, multi-stakeholder scenarios on the future of sustainability for the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and was facilitator of the last IPCC emissions scenarios. Ged first graduated with a degree in Mining Engineering from Imperial, College London. He holds postgraduate degrees in Economics and Engineering from the London School of Economics and Stanford University.

GEE there is good old LSE and Stanford University again busy rearranging our lives for us.

So it certainly looks like Bill McKibben got one thing correct but I doubt that he had this particular set of information in mind. (snicker)

Just to throw a spanner into the discussion, say I was trying to grow blueberries and planted them in 75% peat and they thrived. The following year, say, I worked a few pounds of powered chalk into the soil at the base of each plant. That would change the pH of the soil and the blueberries would not like that. One might say I or the chalk changed the chemistry of the soil. I’ll let you work out your own physics example.

Nevertheless, I do think Bill Mc. is beyond help and would do his cause the most good by simply shutting up.

…this industry, and this industry alone, holds the power to change the physics and chemistry of our planet , and they’re planning to use it. –

Is he talking about the chemical make up of the atmosphere, or the laws of nature? If the latter, well they were fixed before he arrived on the scene.
Jeremiah 33
New International Version (NIV)
25 This is what the Lord says: ‘If I have not made my covenant with day and night and established the laws of heaven and earth,

I see that McKibben is now affiliated with the renamed Schumacher Society–http://neweconomicsinstitute.org/organizations

The initiative to reorganize society and the economy around sustainability has these people redefining science as a social process among scientists instead of a body of knowledge. That was supposed to quietly become a practice that would change how future voters thought. Not become a topic of conversation on internationally accessible blogs by people also wondering why IPCC cooked the books and the models reject reality.

Nobody was supposed to actually read those Planet under Pressure policy briefs and then start looking up the unknown acronyms. Plus Corporations are groups of people not doing business in their own name. It’s not hard to find out who is involved once you know the names. I get they made the Beverly Forum an informal lobby of funders for a reason. Then don’t issue a Challenge announcing your transformative intentions.

Print literacy may be an area of deliberate deemphasis now in education but we are not a nation or world of illiterates yet. We can still follow a trail of evidence and recognize a first rate political power grab and rent seeking scheme when we see it. Hopefully in time although Big Business still believes it can push this agenda alone according to the advocacy book Capitalism at the Crossroads.

What concerns me is the number of college campuses this man speaks at. Where the students feel and believe what this man says and his very presence on campus adds legitimacy to what he says.

What if he teams up with the Capitalism at the Crossroads author? Who there will recognize the nonsense being spun into gold speaking fees.

” – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99″

Whenever someone refers to the odds of an event occurring “randomly” or “by simple chance” without specifying the assumptions and parameters of the stochastic model they are comparing against you can simply ignore them for the rambling idiot that they are demonstrating themselves to be.

Given the repetition, it would appear that this ‘new math’ meme is the new warmist propaganda strategy. It is terrifying, but not for anything climatological. The scary part is the abject innumeracy of the activists and the sheople they are influencing with these lies.

I went all the way WUWT for some substantial counter-analysis of McKibben’s piece in Rolling Stone and all I got was a partial quote, excerpts and zero meaningful commentary from Watts beyond, “Jeesh, that McKibben – what a bozo!”

Later in the article McKibben writes, “If people come to understand the cold, mathematical truth – that the fossil-fuel industry is systematically undermining the planet’s physical systems – it might weaken it enough to matter politically.”

See that part about “physical systems?” I suspect that was the tree he was barking up because, well, if you look up the definition of “physics” you’ll find it can include gems like “The behavior of a given physical system, especially as understood by a physical theory.” That’s from the American heritage dictionary. You can find similar elements of the definition elsewhere too.

So, Anthony, his use of the word “physics” is applicable. Now get off your duff and do some real work debunking his spiel!

Wow, what a loony tune. If BIG OIL can change the laws of physics and chemistry then I suggest they start more fundamentally with mathematics. I would like them to change mortgage amortization so that the bank pays me.

I’d like to say that you can’t get any nuttier than McKibben currently is, but that would be untrue. But temporary: if you get nuttier, your friends do an intervention and you get help.

The conspiracy: oil companies shut down solar energy efforts because

1 they want to make less money with oil. Because solar is so cost-effective, while you sell it to the grid for the same price as you get at coal or NG-driven powerplants.. Or because

2) competing with oil, solar is so cheap that oil will be worth nothing, and they wish to avoid such a low-cost competitive energy source.

Which fantasy drives him? Has he ever worked in private industry, where profits are king? If solar repeats profits, they’ll do that, too. And if solar will become a competitor, they’ll want to be the best producer of solar panels around, and keep the costs up, like Apple does with its Mac.

He’s already insane. Appears his insanity goes back to him contracting Dengue fever in Bangladesh and the tirade of his CO2 AGW/CC rantings were born thereafter. So he’s got a mosquito in his bonnet blaming the ills and his misfortune on ‘evil’ CO2.

I have a ‘chance’ of contracting Dengue fever if I visit parts of tropical Queensland in Australia or go to Vanuatu or even the Cook Islands. So yes McKibben is insane and deluded!

“Our research indicates that Americans may have stumbled upon an extreme degree of ignorance and disregard for the plight of dying Syrians that we never before thought humanly possible,” said lead researcher Dr. Henry Mason

Trouble is they their brand of snake oil appeals to the larger proportion of students who are our future “thinking” class. I’ve been appalled by arguments from otherwise well educated young people. “Designer brains” are the new post normal inheritors of the intelligencia.

The level of hysteria is disturbing.
_________________________
It is not the level of hysteria that is disturbing, it is the fact it sees print in a rag aimed at teens and twenties and it adds more fuel to this fire.
from Jo Nova, a quote from Greenpeace.

“We need to hit them where it hurts most, by any means necessary: through the power of our votes, our taxes, our wallets, and more.”

“‘We must break the law to make the laws we need: laws that are supposed to protect society, and protect our future. Until our laws do that, screw being climate lobbyists. Screw being climate activists. It’s not working. We need an army of climate outlaws.’

“The proper channels have failed. It’s time for mass civil disobedience to cut off the financial oxygen from denial and skepticism.

“If you’re one of those who believe that this is not just necessary but also possible, speak to us. Let’s talk about what that mass civil disobedience is going to look like.

“If you’re one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission, then hear this:

“We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.

“And we be many, but you be few.”

This is inciting to riot and could be darn dangerous. A decade ago I have had several attacks by young Animal Rights fanatics over a period of three years. The attacks were aimed at having an innocent third party badly injured or killed and me sued. They finally managed to get 20 people hospitalized, a competitor of mine sued and the legislation they wanted passed. It has been over eight years and there have been no further incidents BTW. The lawsuit is still on going so I can say nothing more.

I have nothing but contempt for Bill McKibben, Mann, Jones, Black and the others who are too cowardly to doing anything but incite young folk to do their dirty work for them. People who use the young in this way deserve a special place in Hades.

327 months. That would be 27.25 years. I believe it is therefore also safe to say that the 30 years from 1920 to 1950 were warmer than the depths of the LIA and the chances of that happening are much more astronomical. This is only half of the often quoted 60 year cycle. The odds of having 30 warm years seem very different if we talk about half of a 60 year cycle rather than 30 years or 360 months or 1560 weeks or 10957 days or 262,973 hours or….

Babsy says:
July 19, 2012 at 1:16 pm
“You can violate the laws of man. You can violate the laws of God. You cannot violate the laws of Physics (and we don’t know yet what they all are).”

Well said! And we have way too many “scientists” on this site who are skeptical of AGW while accepting present theories of physics as if they are dogma when as you say “we don’t yet know what they all are”.

Oh My….
He just doesn’t understand what a fool he is and never will. That Green Kool-aid has some serious side-effects, up to and including brain death (assuming it was more than a stem to begin with).

Sad these people have a public following that believes them.
Sadder that they are incapable of learning.

I recall in Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle, Dr. Felix Hoenikker invented a crystal called “Ice Nine” which changed the physical properties of water so that it had a melting point of 114.4 degrees F. (Presumably, there were 8 previous attempts to make this crystal.)

I didn’t really enjoy this novel very much, but it’s interesting to Google “ice nine” and read the theoretical basis for how something can change the physical properties of every molecule of water it comes in contact with…..
__________________________________________
The second company I worked for is infamous for doing this type of stuff with a chemical that used to be liquid at room temperature. Somehow they ended up with a crystal form of the stuff and “infected” everyone else. The trade name of the chemical was Vandride. It was a Liquid Anhydride Curing Agent For Resins.

It should be mentioned that the comic Craig Ferguson is on the record that “Scotty from Star Trek is the only one we couldn’t understand back in the old country. I didn’t know he was meant to be Scottish. I thought he was a Pakistani guy that had a stroke.” Personally, I partially blame “Scotty’s” famous line in the ’60’s for my degree in physics in the ’70’s.

Then there was a Deep Space Nine episode where the certified insane Jack states the engineer was right, you can’t change the laws of physics… but you can Bend Them! Of course, Jack and his loony (in nice ways) genetically enhanced friends had a working demonstration of the bent laws of physics, which is more than McKibben has.

McKibben was here in tiny Nevada City in California’s Sierra Nevada foothills to give a chat last April, but I didn’t care to donate $20 to the cause to be able to hear it. Governor Brown was there, and as far as I can tell, he either believes, or wants to believe.

For the past twelve years Bill McKibben’s age has exceeded the average of the previous forty years. He is really getting old fast. Little hope is left. It is getting increasingly likely that he will never be young again. Oh my. Send money, lots of money, real fast.

Gail Combs says:
July 19, 2012 at 2:42 pm
“We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.
“And we be many, but you be few.”

This is inciting to riot and could be darn dangerous.
——————————————————————

I wouldn’t put too much into this bullying, these threats. To pursue this in any large degree would guarantee their downfall. Yes, there may be sporadic cases, but, in general the public would quickly see their true colors and demand immediate an end to any large-scale violence. Witness: When’s the last time you heard mention of the Occupy Movement?

In a free society, lunatics are generally tolerated, until the instant they become violent.

Probably the most famous Pogo quotation is “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Perhaps more than any other words written by Kelly, it perfectly sums up his attitude towards the foibles of mankind and the nature of the human condition.

The quote was a parody of a message sent in 1813 from U.S. Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry to Army General William Henry Harrison after his victory in the Battle of Lake Erie, stating, “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.” It first appeared in a lengthier form in A Word to the Fore, the foreword of the book The Pogo Papers, first published in 1953. Since the strips reprinted in Papers included the first appearances of Mole and Simple J. Malarkey, beginning Kelly’s attacks on McCarthyism, Kelly used the foreword to defend his actions:

“Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of a cartoonist all traits become ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle.

There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blasts on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.

You picked the wrong series. In Star Trek The Next Generation, there was an episode where Q loses his powers, and is reduced to being an adviser on the Enterprise. When faced with a vexing problem, he tells them to change the gravitational constant of the universe.

I was just looking back over Julian Simon’s The Ultimate Resource 2 where he spends quite a bit of time laying all the hyped up future catastrophes that Paul Ehrlich pushed that were quite wrong as the future unfolded. No real consequences for being consistently so wrong. In fact I wrote recently about the fact that Simon may have won the wager but it is Ehrlich’s desire to alter the nature of human consciousness that is being put in place via education.

McKibben’s work just seems to be more confirmation that as long as there is a pot of money to be gained from ignoring reality and trying to rig the economic and political systems, this sustainability nonsense will continue to be a threat.

The book I mentioned above, Capitalism at the Crossroads, even had Gore writing the preface on what a great investment sustainability will be. Giving the name of his investment group.

Good grief. But then I am still trying to get over Coke’s execs describing having had a formal agreement with GreenPeace for 10 years. Especially in light of those quotes I just read above.

I’m off to bed now. I shall be climbing 10 steps. The odds that I shall go up the 10 steps is (1/2)^10=1/1024. So evey night there is a 1/1024 chance i go to bed and yet every night i do. But to go up each night i must come down each morning (another 1/1024) longshot. So thats at least 1,000,000 to 1 each day. Now 365 days in a year that’s 10^(6*365) = 10^2190 to 1 so far more unlikely than the mere 3.7*10^99 to 1 that 327 consecutive months are above average.

My submission to the even more stupid than stupid probability competition ;>)

No doubt she’s writing her book on a computer, a device that simply wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for corporations. She could go to pencil and paper, but again, they’re both produced by corporations. She’s probably using an operating system and word processing software written by corporations. If she’s using Open Office, it’s STILL from corporations even if getting a copy is free.

Then, she’s taking her masterwork to a book publisher, and last I checked virtually every one of them is a… wait for it… CORPORATION.

After having this book published, she’ll no doubt be dealing with other corporations for marketing and distribution. Because let’s face it, people don’t do this crap for free in any kind of volume.

After damning the corporations who allowed her to sell her anti-corporate work, she’ll no doubt use the money to purchase things like houses, cars, bedding, furniture, etc, ALL of which will be produced, marketed and distributed by corporations.

Yes, Irony. Just like the anti-corporate music produced for the last few decades that will ONLY be heard by consumers because of… corporations.

Re: 3.7 x 10-99, it could be that someone was using the “-” symbol in place of the more conventional “^” [“to the power of”]. I wouldn’t crucify the user for using the minus sign…..

2 raised to the power of 327 equals 2.7 x 10^98. So in other words, if we flipped a coin and got 327 heads in a row, the odds of that happening are 1 in 2.7 x 10^98, or in other words 3.7 x 10^-99 to 1.

matt says:
July 19, 2012 at 3:00 pm

@ Werner Brozek

15,778,380 Minutes
946,702,800 Seconds
…

However if we used seconds instead of months, 2 raised to the power of 946,702,800 equals ??? My calculator couldn’t do it. But should the odds depend on the units used? If years are used in the same (wrong) way, we get 2 raised to the power of 27.25 equals 1.6 x 10^8.

“Since all of us are in some way the beneficiaries of cheap fossil fuel, tackling climate change has been like trying to build a movement against yourself – it’s as if the gay-rights movement had to be constructed entirely from evangelical preachers, or the abolition movement from slaveholders.”
===================
I have a movement every morning, like clock-work.
I feel no guilt as it passes.
I earned it.

We are living in the age where the energy sector is the world’s biggest economic source of transactions – the greatest cash cow in the world.

Governments want to cash in on it, as governments are financially ambitious. Naturally, the product has to be vilified in order to tax it both directly and indirectly – I suspect, without the figures, that indirect revenue from the energy sector is greater – such as what came with the Climate Change Bill here in the UK

of or course, whilst digressing from the main topic of ther thread, yes, the laws of physics and chemistry have been corrupted during this process of scientists selling their integrity to the highest bidders ( governments).

In fact, the formerly prestigious academies and institutions, like The Royal Academy et al, have brought themselves into disrepute through this climate swindle.

“.…this industry, and this industry alone, holds the power to change the physics and chemistry of our planet , and they’re planning to use it. – 350.org’s Bill McKibben”

Perhaps Billy was referring to the thin and frothy science of CO2 driven global warming, aka ‘Fizzicks’. Similarly, he may have been referring to the incomprehensible AGW molecular reactions, that believers refer to as ‘Chemystery’.

Viewed from this perspective, it is apparent that they are already using this new Fizzicks and Chemystery quite effectively!
MtK

“There’s not a more reckless man on the planet than Tillerson…In December, BP finally closed its solar division. Shell shut down its solar and wind efforts in 2009. The five biggest oil companies have made more than $1 trillion in profits since the millennium – there’s simply too much money to be made on oil and gas and coal to go chasing after zephyrs and sunbeams.”

Well Billyboy, it’s what we’ve been trying to tell you and if you and your lot can get dopey Gummint to subsidise zebras and moonbeams for a while, they’ll all come roaring back while the Gravy Train’s a runnin’. Just look in the mirror for the answer mate.

I do not know the proper units to calculate the odds of 327 months to be above the long term average. However if we convert that to decades, and raise that, we get 2 raised to the power of 2.725 which gives a 1 in 6.6 chance that the last 2.725 decades are above average. After we had ten years of no warming, I read the odds of that happening according to all model runs was 1 in 8. Fifteen years of no warming apparently never occurred on any runs. I now have a question for Bill McKibben or anyone who wishes to answer on his behalf. And the same math rules have to be used as were used to get the 3.7 x 10^-99 number.
If the chances of a decade of no warming is 1 in 8, then what are the chances of 120 months of no warming?

Re: 3.7 x 10-99, it could be that someone was using the “-” symbol in place of the more conventional “^” [“to the power of”]. I wouldn’t crucify the user for using the minus sign…..

2 raised to the power of 327 equals 2.7 x 10^98. So in other words, if we flipped a coin and got 327 heads in a row, the odds of that happening are 1 in 2.7 x 10^98, or in other words 3.7 x 10^-99 to 1.

2 raised to the power of 327 equals 2.7 x 10^98. So in other words, if we flipped a coin and got 327 heads in a row, the odds of that happening are 1 in 2.7 x 10^98, or in other words 3.7 x 10^-99 to 1.

Oops – maybe. I was going to post a comment that no one had computed 2^327 and that the answer was (on my 1970s calculator) 2.7 x 10^98. I hope I would have realized that he was right. It would have been better worded for math geeks had he said probability or chance instead of odds, i.e. “the chance of which occurring by simple chance werebeing 3.7 x 10-99″ …

Oh my, if we continue, … “a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe.”

…this industry, and this industry alone, holds the power to change the physics and chemistry of our planet …

I think we are being too hard on Mr McKibben on this quote (though not on the rest of what he says).

The expression “change the chemistry of ZZZZ” is used commonly. It means change the chemical content, not change the rules of chemistry. I suspect that Mr McKibben is using “change the physics” in a similar way. Not changing the laws of physics, but changing the physical environment so as to produce different outcomes. For example, changing the chemical make up of the atmosphere or changing the land surface by clearing vegetation and building urban environments.

I don’t defend the rest of what he says, but we need to target our criticisms accurately or we risk imitating those we criticise.

My last 327 months alive I’m taller than I was than my lifetime height average. Clearly I’m going to grow so tall I’ll bash my head on doorways.

The other shocking statistic is that fully half of the population have more balls than the average person. Clearly we need a testicular tax to halt this problem before we reach peak men.

As usual, hysterists only look at costs, never at benefits. Say we stopped using oil tomorrow, as is his fervent wish. How many people would die?
– everyone waiting for an ambulance that never shows up
– everyone that relies on motorised transport for food, medicine and supplies
– everyone that relies on heating for their homes and doesn’t have a forest to chop down
– everyone that relies on large scale agriculture for their calorie supply

Every time the average temperature goes up or down, it becomes its own new baseline about which there is roughly a 50/50 probability of it going up or down again. The more the average temperature veers away from McKibben’s arbitrary baseline (the 20th century average) the less of a chance of that average returning to the baseline; the odds do not stay at 50/50, but diminish very rapidly the further the average temperature displaces from McKibben’s baseline.

So the problem for McKibben is the idea of a baseline as having any validity whatsoever in a stochastic system. If only Earth had a correct temperature, McKibben would be right! And we could all wear hair shirts and work to restore Earth’s correct temperature…that we defined as the clever little humans that we are! Yes, we are the generation that figured out Earth’s correct temperature.

climatetruthinitiative says: “Re: 3.7 x 10-99, it could be that someone was using the “-” symbol in place of the more conventional “^” [“to the power of”]. I wouldn’t crucify the user for using the minus sign…..”

A minus sign in mathematics has a specific meaning that is understood by all who are literate in that field. The caret also has specific meaning among the numerate. Bill bandies about exponentials and “odds,” but clearly doesn’t know their proper use. Of course people will make fun of him. You yourself speak of the caret as “more” conventional, which is ridiculous. It’s the correct symbol and no other can legitimately replace it. This isn’t social “science.” It’s math. Get a grip.

Michael J says:
July 19, 2012 at 7:09 pm
…I suspect that Mr McKibben is using “change the physics” in a similar way. Not changing the laws of physics, but changing the physical environment so as to produce different outcomes. For example, changing the chemical make up of the atmosphere or changing the land surface by clearing vegetation and building urban environments.
I don’t defend the rest of what he says, but we need to target our criticisms accurately or we risk imitating those we criticise.

None of us knows what he intended to write, only that which he actually wrote. Targeting what he may possibly have *meant* to say rather than what he *did* say would be an exercise in futility.

leftinbrooklyn says:
July 19, 2012 at 3:25 pm
“I wouldn’t put too much into this bullying, these threats. To pursue this in any large degree would guarantee their downfall. Yes, there may be sporadic cases, but, in general the public would quickly see their true colors and demand immediate an end to any large-scale violence. Witness: When’s the last time you heard mention of the Occupy Movement?”

The Old media have dropped them as they became too damaging to their cause; but they are still around, making threats. I’ve read something yesterday about them, but not in the Old Media but on Breitbart. Of course the Old Media will not mention any of that; at the moment they want Romney’s tax returns, but next week they will whip up a different frenzy.

Of course, if all you read is the Old Media, they will manipulate you with their coordinated message. Google JournOList to see how that works.

Skiphil says:
July 19, 2012 at 3:11 pm
Anyway, we have it straight from the eco-freak’s Twitter that this article is of vast world historical importance:
Bill McKibben‏ @billmckibben
“I think this is the most impt thing I’ve written in many years…”

Dissonance is aroused when people are confronted with information that is inconsistent with their beliefs. If the dissonance is not reduced by changing one’s belief, the dissonance can result in misperception or rejection or refutation of the information, seeking support from others who share the beliefs, and attempting to persuade others to restore consonance.

An early version of cognitive dissonance theory appeared in Leon Festinger’s 1956 book, When Prophecy Fails. This book gave an inside account of the increasing belief that sometimes follows the failure of a cult’s prophecy. The believers met at a pre-determined place and time, believing they alone would survive the Earth’s destruction. The appointed time came and passed without incident. They faced acute cognitive dissonance: had they been the victim of a hoax? Had they donated their worldly possessions in vain? Most members chose to believe something less dissonant: the aliens had given earth a second chance, and the group was now empowered to spread the word: earth-spoiling must stop. The group dramatically increased their proselytism despite the failed prophecy’.

With some newly acquired mathematical techniques as I understand them, I will prove the above statement. Before I begin, the number of galaxies in the universe is estimated to be 150 billion or 1.5 x 10^11. The number of stars in each galaxy is estimated to average 100 billion or 1 x 10^11. So the total number of stars in the universe is 1.5 x 10^22. As we are led to believe, added CO2 should increase temperatures so the chances of a succeeding month being warmer than the month before is larger than 50%. But in my calculations, I will generously assume there is only a 50/50 chance the next month on the average will be warmer than the month before. On the hadsst2 data set, there is cooling at the rate of about 1.0 C/ century for the last 10 years and 6 months or 126 months. See:http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/trend
The chances of that green slope line going down for 126 consecutive months is 2^126 or 8.5 x 10^37. Since this is many orders of magnitude larger than the number of stars in the known universe, I conclude global warming is a hoax. If my reasoning is totally out to lunch, I will ask that Bill McKibben show me the errors of my ways.

This is a disappointing set of rants. In the phrase “change the physics and chemistry of our planet” the two sciences are clearly used in an identical manner and therefore are interchangable.

So why assume that “change the chemistry of the planet” means change some chemical attribute of the planet, which isn’t controversial, whereas “change the physics of our planet” refers to altering universal laws?

“the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99”

What he is describing by his tortured use of statistics is actually, that the start of the 21st century is warmer than the average of the 20th.

Um, I would have thought that the odds of the 21st century being warmer than the 20th by chance are about 33% with 33% being the same temp and 33% of being cooler.

And that is before we examine what dodgy statistics he is using to claim the current temperatures are warmer (dodgy weather station siting problems leading to warming recorded as double what is in reality the case).

“warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe.”

Since when has the climate changed by random chance? Doesn’t the climate change (in absence of man) due to natural forcings and feedbacks? So comparing man’s impact to climate versus chance is not rational and thus a straw man, not even a clever straw man at that!

‘We all like to take cheap flights to warmer climates’
Well if the planet got a couple of degrees warmer the cheap flights would be unnecessary.
UK today— rain and cloud temp around 12C. Forecast warmer, 16C, dry and sky clear so wrong again.

steveta_uk says:
July 20, 2012 at 12:50 am
This is a disappointing set of rants. In the phrase “change the physics and chemistry of our planet” the two sciences are clearly used in an identical manner and therefore are interchangable.

Then that means that, as two components of the same compound objective phrase, that each should make sense when parsed separately:
“…change the chemistry of our planet” is — chemically — possible.
“…change the physics of our planet” is — physically — impossible.

So why assume that “change the chemistry of the planet” means change some chemical attribute of the planet, which isn’t controversial, whereas “change the physics of our planet” refers to altering universal laws?

Because that’s what he *said*. “Changing the physics” does not mean “changing the physical characteristics.”

I know McGibben [sic] is an idiot, but so clearly are some WUWT readers.

Billy, your inhumanity is showing. You seem to be crossing a dangerous line, wherein you start to believe humanity is the problem, and the cure is to become inhumane.

Humanity is not the problem. Humanity is the condition.

The condition contains some negative attributes, but also some positive ones.

The negative can be generally described as selfishness, and the positive can be generally described with the mysterious word, “Love.”

Some spiritual disciplines do actually “start a war against yourself,” however this charity begins at home. The ego you attempt to terminate is your own ego. It’s a big mistake to terminate everyone elses, before you yourself get your act together. It’s like you stay a crook, whilst telling others to be saints.

It is Love that really transforms society. For example, a mother may be selfish as she holds her baby, but her Love turns that selfishness into remarkable deeds of self-sacrifice.

Love is light. What you need to do, Billy, is to lighten up. Drop the darkness.

climatetruthinitiative says: “Re: 3.7 x 10-99, it could be that someone was using the “-” symbol in place of the more conventional “^” [“to the power of”]. I wouldn’t crucify the user for using the minus sign…..”

A minus sign in mathematics has a specific meaning that is understood by all who are literate in that field. The caret also has specific meaning among the numerate. Bill bandies about exponentials and “odds,” but clearly doesn’t know their proper use. Of course people will make fun of him. You yourself speak of the caret as “more” conventional, which is ridiculous. It’s the correct symbol and no other can legitimately replace it. This isn’t social “science.” It’s math. Get a grip.

“no other can legitimately replace it”

Perhaps that’s true of mathematicians, but in the computer programming world, early keypunches didn’t have many of the mathematically symbols mathematicians thrive upon.

This led Fortran authors to develop a description that doesn’t use mathematical symbols, this is used today in many languages. Other languages, notably C, usurped caret for the XOR Boolean function. For example, in Python:

The C language is defined by ANSI standards, so there are communities that make it clear that caret is not for exponentiation, and that ** is. Sorry.

Last century, when I took math, I don’t think we used caret for exponentiation. We generally used superscripts, e.g. 2³²⁷ (I hope that worked). Perhaps you need to spend more time at the blackboard rather than typing Email in your mathematical dialect. :-)

Rolling Stone is it now? Rolling !@#&%^ Stone?? What a eminent and scholarly journal. At least we now know what it is that Bill McKibbens is smoking – and why he is so paranoid. /sarc

And the ‘money quote’ – got to love this – by who? Fatih Birol?? an ECONOMIST???

…”The new data provide further evidence that the door to a two-degree trajectory is about to close,” said Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist. In fact, he continued, “When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of about six degrees.” That’s almost 11 degrees Fahrenheit, which would create a planet straight out of science fiction.
…

And which data exactly are those whose trend is, “perfectly in line with a temperature increase of about six degrees”? I’d love to see the footnote for THAT citation. /sarc

To be polite to my fellow readers who might also be more rational economists I’ll restrain myself from saying what I want to about THAT particular profession – they get it right SO often and are SO candid about their failures – but here the ‘Hysterics’ like McKibben go again, going for the quote from someone who can basically just make things up and will never feel any type of personal or professional consequence from being wrong [but feel free to enrich themselves along the way].

“There is no progress in [climate science] only sublime recapitulation.” ~ the venerable Jorge de Burgos

One warm year in YOUR neighborhood after a couple of cooler years and the rhetoric automatically resets itself; “climate change” is “global warming” once again; ‘a return to warming trends’ becomes a straight shot at the inferno. Do they realize how transparent this behavior is to other people??

What McKibben and his kind seem have done is create a new FOLK DEVIL out of the fossil fuel industry. Is Shell the new “Jew”? So, you have to ask in all seriousness, where will this incitement lead and what will happen in their imagined future to those labeled ‘Juden’?

I feel it would benefit the world as a whole if McKibben’s views were widely propagated. Then rational people would realise what we’re up against.
A personal message to Mr McK: If a couple of people in medical gowns approach you; do not resist; just do as they ask as they will be there to help you.

“I feel it would benefit the world as a whole if McKibben’s views were widely propagated. Then rational people would realise what we’re up against.”

Rational people have made their decision a long time ago: Resist warmism or become part of the gravy train riders. A good part of the solar cronies know that it’s all a scam. But it’s where the money is. So they continue peddling solar projects to EU protectorates who get a few billions in stimulus money provided they squander it on renewable energy projects. Like the 120 bn EUR that Merkel et al threw around 2 weeks ago during the last Euro crisis summit. Greece is technically broke but pays 36 Eurocent per kWh for new installations, guaranteed for the next 20 years. Go figure.

Dyrewulf says:
July 19, 2012 at 4:21 pm
“Wow… just wow. I have four big dogs in this house, two Germain Shorthaired Pointers, a German Shepherd, and a Blue Tick Hound, and they’re ALL smarter than that man….”

Get a couple of Chessies for comparison. They are extremely intelligent but rated as stupid since they are the most stubborn creatures I have yet to encounter. But no doubt smarter than this guy, and a lot of other people, as far as that goes.

2.2 If science fails, ideology should do it – Mike Hulme
Hulme, (Professor of Climate Change, University of East Anglia) is arguably the UK’s most influential AGW scientist. He has an interesting view of political realities:
“Within a capitalist world order, climate change is actually a convenient phenomenon to come along.”
He dismisses ‘normal’ science because it produces the wrong answer:
“Self-evidently dangerous climate change will not emerge from a normal scientific process of truth seeking …”

Michael Tremblay says:
July 19, 2012 at 10:12 pm
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
George Carlin

I love this one because it is statistically quite accurate, assuming one believes that intelligence is normally distibuted. I already miss Carlin’s humor. And even those on the left hand tail of the normal distribution curve get to vote! God help us.

A good part of the solar cronies know that it’s all a scam. But it’s where the money is. So they continue peddling solar projects to EU protectorates who get a few billions in stimulus money provided they squander it on renewable energy projects.

vs.

Anthony:

In December, BP finally closed its solar division. Shell shut down its solar and wind efforts in 2009. The five biggest oil companies have made more than $1 trillion in profits since the millennium – there’s simply too much money to be made on oil and gas and coal to go chasing after zephyrs and sunbeams.

If you have a century with a beginning temperature about 0.5-0.6 degrees lower than the ending temperature (slight upward slope) and then plateau, what are the odds that the plateau will be higher than the average of the rising century of temperatures? approximately one in one.

I don’t get the maths I am afraid. Learned about slopes of local maxima and minima in basic calculus you see and can’t be fooled by little tricks like this.

Thought you folks would like to know – that we in the east of the UK (you know, the DRIEST bit) – saw the SUN today for what seems like the first time in weeks…
But – hey – this is weather, not climate….

None of us knows what he intended to write, only that which he actually wrote. Targeting what he may possibly have *meant* to say rather than what he *did* say would be an exercise in futility.

That is exactly my point. Mr McKibben talked of “changing the physics” which we have extrapolated to “changing the LAWS of physics, but we have no real reason to think he meant that.
We are making fun of Mr McKibben because of our interpretation of his words.

Let’s stick to criticising foolish things he actually did say. There is no shortage of them.